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Perpetual Motion Generator

Work is done when energy moves, and since it always moves from an area of high to
one of low concentration, we can speak of high concentrations of any kind of energy
as potential energy or potential force. The universe has many areas of energy concentration,
as if it were a collection of coiled springs, and all events consist of these concentrations
of energy dispersing. The universe is constantly running down. Eventually -- although
this is not expected to happen for a very long time -- all energy potential will
be exhausted and no events can ever happen.

Perpetual motion, strictly speaking,
is impossible. That said, there are some sources of power that, while not really
perpetual, will last long enough that in human terms they might as well be. The sun
is an obvious example. It's not perpetual -- it will come to an end in some 4 or
5 billion years -- but as far as we're concerned it might as well be. So the real
question is not whether perpetual motion is possible (it's not), but whether power
generation on a significant scale using magnets to interact with the Earth's magnetic
field is feasible. Is this another might-as-well-be-perpetual source of power like
the sun?

Reality

The reality is that magnet power is as theoretically impossible as perpetual motion.
The reason for this is that a "permanent" magnet isn't really permanent. It's like
a storage battery in that it contains energy potential that was put there by some
process or other. The process could be natural or it could be man-made, but either
way, every use of the magnets decreases the strength of their magnetic field until
it drops to uselessness. Once that happens, the magnets can be recharged (this happens
continuously with electromagnets), but only at the expense of other energy produced
elsewhere. Magnets look like a source of power only because we cannot see their force
working. Hold the magnet over something made of ferrous metal, and a force is generated
that pulls the two towards one another. Place two magnets with their same polls close
together (north to north or south to south), and they push one another apart. Since
the Earth has a magnetic field of its own, this attractive and/or repulsive force
could conceptually be used to drive a generator, but the energy to do so would be
stored in a permanent magnet designed to do it, and that energy would have come originally
from some other power source and would have to be replaced when it was gone.

Kits, Plans, And Blueprints

It's possible to find online (on web pages and also in the form of YouTube videos)
offers of kits, plans, and blueprints for the production of magnet power. Sometimes
these are advertised as "perpetual motion" generators (which they aren't, of course),
and sometimes not. The usual format is for a claim to be presented, sometimes along
with an assertion that the government or the power utilities are trying to suppress
the information, and an offer of specific information on how to build your own magnet
generator for a price.

As already noted, there are good reasons to believe that magnet
power making use of the Earth's magnetic field will not work as a power source. This
is not to say that experiments or research into proving otherwise is wasted effort.
Nothing is absolutely certain and perhaps there is some principle that has been overlooked.
However, it's unlikely that someone who has discovered how to do this would make
use of it by offering the information online for a price. Instead, he would use it
to generate cheap power and take the market away from producers of more expensive
energy. It is therefore unlikely that any of the offers of kits, plans, and blueprints
for producing magnet power are genuine and workable.

A perpetual motion generator is the idea of producing electricity from some natural
source of power that never runs out. Usually, ideas of putting perpetual motion into
practice involve use of magnets interacting with the magnetic field of the Earth
to generate electricity.

Theory

The first thing to understand about the theory of perpetual motion is that -- well,
it's theoretically impossible.

The first two laws of thermodynamics, which are fundamental
principles of physics, are that energy is conserved (the total amount of it in any
closed system is always constant -- it can neither be created nor be destroyed),
and that energy always moves from an area of higher to one of lower concentration.
There are many illustrations of this second law. Take a piece of red-hot iron and
drop it into cold water. To begin with, thermal energy (heat) is concentrated strongly
in the piece of red-hot iron. Drop it in the water, though, and over a fairly short
time the iron will cool while the water heats, until both are the same temperature.
The energy has moved from the area of high concentration (the iron) to an area of
low concentration (the water).